


Resistance is Futile

by elladora



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Atleast that is implied, Complete, Drabble, F/M, One Shot, Open to Interpretation, Reader-Insert, Reincarnation, Romance, SI-OC, SI/OC, Sad, Self-Insert, She is Genma's little sis, Short One Shot, reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 08:10:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16114370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elladora/pseuds/elladora
Summary: Some would call it lust, others would call it love, but what it was, was an addiction.





	Resistance is Futile

Tick-tock, tick-tock...

All she could focus on for the past hour was the sound that marked the seconds. Over and over, the ticking continued in its normal pattern, but it was an impertinent chime. It was like having droplets of water fall incessantly on the eyes of a person trying hard to sleep, each time they were past the threshold of unconsciousness.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. Mariko opened her eyes and looked up. Kakashi was standing beside her. "Are you alright?" he asked her in a gentle voice.

But she didn't say anything. Instead she stepped closer to him. Then she wrapped her arms around his waist and clung to him tightly. She closed her eyes and buried her face into his chest as she could feel his arms reassuringly around her. It felt so good, his embrace. She felt so protected in his arms, as if her problems could never reach her here. A wry smile appeared on her face. That was never the case. 

After a while he kissed her on the forehead then he took hold of her chin and bent it gently up. Her eyes hungrily devoured his face, as he pulled down his mask. Her insides clenched tightly. Because that was the effect he had on her. 

"Feeling better?" he asked her in his melodious voice.

Dazed, Mariko nodded. They walked along a narrow trail. Mariko’s winter boots sank with each step into the soft coldness of the snow. She breathed in the cool winter air and then let her gaze wander over the wilderness of the mountains of Yuki no Kuni.

They wandered around without saying a single word. The realization of what would happen next settled gradually over Mariko in the long minutes, like the softly falling snow around them.

"I've got to go back, don't I?" she asked, weighing the day's revelations in her mind.

"That is up to you," Kakashi replied.

"I've got a choice?"

She gave a bitter laugh. As if, Konoha would ever allow anyone leave. She was neither important enough like Tsunade or stupid enough to ask it. Only death lay in that direction. And despite her misgivings about this life, she was not suicidal enough to kill herself in such a stupid way. 

"Oh, yes." She took a look at him, saw a touch of slyness to his smile, and concluded that he was showing that to her on purpose. After knowing him for such a long time with him, she had come to understand that if Kakashi wanted to hide his emotions from her, he could do it flawlessly and effortlessly. Or at least, it wouldn’t be as conspicuous as right now.

Mariko closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to get her wayward emotions back under control. Kakashi, he had shaken her determination to leave the blood drenched and forsaken place by showing her a life without her sorrow. 

It was making this whole thing even more difficult. Was this nightmare she had been thrown into never going to end? 

Her heart thudding heavily against her chest. She let her hand rest on his arm. “I don’t love him,” she said after a while, biting down hard on the inside of her cheek.

“I see.” he said as he looked at her with his blank face. The cold winter wind was ruffling up his spiky silver hair. They continued to follow the trail for a while but then it started to snow. Thick snowflakes were falling down on the already snowy mountains and the two wanderers passing through it. Mariko wrapped her rough cloak tighter around herself. It was starting to get colder. 

But just as she was thinking about running back to the shack she was staying at, she spotted a small cave hiding behind the large trees. Underneath the rock was a relatively dry patch which could shelter them from the wind and snow.

"Let's seek shelter for a while," she said to Kakashi as she pointed to the protected space under the overhanging rock.

He nodded and they set off towards their destination. As she reached the protected place she sat down and leaned with her back against the rocky wall. Kakashi sat down beside her and Mariko smiled at him.

His hands flashed in different hand signs too fast for her to decipher. Not a single word left his mouth, but the cold wind instantly stopped and the air around them started to heat up. In the end it was warm enough for her to take off her winter cloaks. Mariko sighed contently and leaned her head back against the stone wall.

"Ah, that's better," she whispered. “One of your handy tricks?”

Kakashi suddenly bent down to her and tugged her frizzy hair behind her ear. “Yes. A simple e-rank jutsu I picked up from a ninja from Yuki during a mission. It is simple enough. Even for someone who works behind a desk the whole day.”

Mariko hissed at him, which, annoyingly, made the cheeky smile he was sporting on his face even wider.

She rolled her eyes and watched the snowflakes falling down, adding to the already thick blanket of snow that covered the ground outside of their shelter. Besides her, she saw Kakashi grabbing a red booklet. She snorted. Typical. And focused her attention once again on the scenario outside the cave.

"Can I ask you something?" he suddenly asked out of no-where.

Mariko turned her head towards him and eyed him suspiciously. His attention was still focused on the booklet. 

"Sure," she said slowly.

“Why are you with him?”

Her heart started thudding heavily against her chest, “What?”

Without noticing it; she was taking shorter, sharper breaths, and leaned against the wall.

“Why are you with him, Mariko? To me it seems you would rather plot his death or end him yourself then marry him.”

Mariko stared at Kakashi. She was surprised when he looked up from his booklet and gave her his familiar ‘I’m waiting’ gaze. She hated that look. She hated the familiarity of this situation. She hated that she now had to explain why… again. She hated that there was really no need for her to explain, but that he would make her do so anyway.

Her eyes flickered downwards, “My brother,” she simply stated.

“Why do you return to him and Genma if that is the case, Mariko? Your brother wants you to be happy. Leave him.”

His voice almost sounded pleading. She looked up. She hated the deceptively patient expression on his face.

It wasn't the first time she had left her fiancé and brother.

And in her heart, she knew that it wouldn't be the last time either. She hated that she was so weak. That she couldn't seem to just cut him loose and move on with her life. She hated that, despite everything, she would inevitably always end up standing before her fiancé. She hated that he always, without fail, took her back. Even when she left—even when she declared that this was the last time—her fiancé knew, and more importantly, she knew that it was only a matter of time before she walked back in through those doors for another round of torture. Unless Kakashi himself left Konoha.

She hated that her fiancé viewed her internal conflict as nothing more than a childish fancy. She hated that he looked down on her as an immature brat who, if she didn't get her way, would stomp her foot and try to punish him.

All she had to do was turn on her heel, grab her stuff, and disappear. She would never need to look back. Not at her fiancé. Her brother. Kakashi.

But she knew that she didn't have enough self-control to leave Kakashi for good. Especially not now. Her shoulders slumped. She'd never had much self-control when it came to him.

It still baffled her how this… relationship came about in the first place. How they managed to get ‘together’ at all was a mystery to her. If any two people were ever completely wrong for one another, it was them.

She shared a powerful connection with him. One where once you spiraled down too deep, it clung to you and you didn't exist without it. She got in too deep and never wanted to resurface again. Some would call it lust, others would call it love, but what it was, was an addiction.

She despised him.

And she told him this.

"Why do you return to him and your brother, Mariko?” he asked again, ignoring her declaration. His eyes never left hers.

She closed her eyes and was surprised to see his image still burning into her consciousness. She knew then, with that one simple realization, that she'd never be able to see anyone else. He was burned into her—into her soul… her insides… her brain.

Her entire being was defined by him and she hated him more for that.

She rested her head in the crook of his neck and was surprised that he allowed her such an intimate embrace. “Kakashi, you're like poison," she whispered. An air of defeat apparent in her tone. "You're poisoning me and no matter how often I try to grab onto the anti-dote, I find that I don't really want to be cured. I don't want to be saved. Perhaps it's some defect in me. Because all I get from you is punishment.”

A teary smile appeared on her face.

“You don't love me. But somehow what you give me is enough. No matter how much I struggle with myself and try to convince myself that I need more…”

She let out a sharp breath. 

“The fact is, that I'm so pathetic that I'll hang onto whatever scraps you give me. And if that means I have to stay at Konoha with Genma and him just to be able with you in any way," Mariko felt tears slipping down her cheeks and landing on his clothed shoulder. She made no attempt to stop the display of vulnerability. “I will stay there, unless you leave Konoha. And that will never happen.”

"This is unhealthy. It's wrong on so many levels but I don't know why… I just keep coming back. And I hate myself for that. I don't want to be in this dependent position. I don't want to want you… I don't want to need you."

"But you do," he finally spoke.

His voice sounded hollow in her ears.

"I'll never be happy," she told him earnestly. “With you, my brother or him. “

She pulled away from his neck and met his eyes again. He was still stoic and seemingly unemotional. She thought she saw something else there but she'd long ago given up trying to read him. 

She steeled herself for the remnants of her speech.

"You asked me why I came back." She took a deep breath and looked directly, almost defiantly, into his eyes. "I came back because of you. You being there ensures that I'll always come back."

She paused one final time.

"So, I'm going back home," she declared. “Because I don't have the strength to walk away from you, but that doesn’t mean you, them or anyone else in Konoha is able to break me. Pride is the only thing I have enough of to boast about in this life. And if you try you will have no idea what I am capable off.”


End file.
